And in this volume the words were stained with a ragged robin which unnoticed had come back to Plashers Mead in his pocket that May eve and which when it fell out later he had pressed between those burning pages.
It was doubtless the worst kind of sentiment, but the two books must go back upon their shelves, and never must they be lost, even if everything but Shakespeare went.
Guy put his hand to his forehead and found that it was actually wet with the agony of what on this January afternoon he had been compelling himself to achieve. Each book before it was condemned he stroked fondly and smelt like incense the fragrant mustiness of the pages, since nearly every volume still commemorated either the pleasure of the moment when he had bought it or some occasion of reading equally good to recall.
Then he covered the pile with a shroud of tattered stuff and wrote a letter offering them to the only bookseller in Oxford with whom he had never dealt. Two days later an a.s.sistant came over to inspect the booty.
"Well?" said Guy painfully, when the a.s.sistant put away his note-book and shot his cuffs forward.
"Well, Mr. Hazlewood, we can offer you 35 for that little lot."
Guy stammered a repet.i.tion of the disappointing sum.
"That"s right, sir. And we don"t really want them."
"But surely 50...."
The a.s.sistant smiled in a superior way.
"We must _try_ and make a _little_ profit," he murmured.
"Oh, G.o.d, you"ll do that. Why, I must have paid very nearly a hundred for them, and they were practically all second hand when I bought them."
The a.s.sistant shrugged his shoulders.
"I"m sorry, sir, but in offering you 35, I"m offering too much as it is. We don"t really want them, you see. They"re not really any good to us."
"You"re simply being d.a.m.ned charitable in fact," said Guy. "All right.
Give me a cheque and take them away when you like ... the sooner the better."
He could have kicked that pile of books he had with such hardship chosen; already they seemed to belong to this smart young a.s.sistant with the satin tie; and he began to hate this agglomeration which had cost him such agony and in the end had swindled him out of 15. The a.s.sistant sat down and wrote a cheque for Guy, took his receipt and bowed himself out, saying that he would send for the books in the course of the week.
Through the rain Guy went for consolation to Pauline. He told her of his sacrifice and she with all she could give of exquisite compa.s.sion listened to his tale.
"But, Guy, my darling, why don"t you borrow the money from Father? I am sure he"d be delighted to lend it to you."
Guy shook his head.
"It"s impossible. My debts must be paid by myself. I wouldn"t even borrow from Michael Fane. Dearest, don"t look so sad. I would sell my soul for you. Kiss me. Kiss me. I care for nothing but your kisses. You must promise not to say a word of this to any one. Besides, it"s no sacrifice to do anything that brings our marriage nearer by an inch.
These debts are weighing me down. They stifle me. I am miserable too about the poems. I haven"t told you yet. It"s really a joke in one way.
Yes, it"s really funny. Worrall wrote to ask for a guinea before he read them. Now, don"t you think there is something very particularly humorous in being charged a guinea by a reader? However, don"t worry about that."
"How could he be so stupid?" she cried. "I hope you took them away from him."
"Oh, no. I sent the guinea. They must be published. Pauline, I must have done something soon or I shall go mad! Surely you see the funny side of his offer? I think the notion of my expecting to get five shillings apiece out of a lot of readers, and my only reader"s getting a guinea out of me is funny. I think it"s quite humorous."
"Nothing is funny to me that hurts you," Pauline murmured. "And I"m heartbroken about the books."
"Oh, when I"m rich I can buy plenty."
"But not the same books."
"That"s mere sentiment," he laughed. "And the only sentiment I allow myself is in connection with things that you have sanctified."
Then he told her about the flowers pressed in the two volumes of Dante, both in that same fifth canto.
"And almost you know," Guy whispered, "I value most the ragged robin, because it commemorates the day you really began to love me."
"Ah, no," she protested. "Guy, don"t say that. I always loved you, but I was shy before. I could not tell you. Sometimes, I wish I were shy now.
It would make our love so much less of a strain."
"Is it a strain?"
"Oh, sometimes," she cried nearly in tears, her light brown hair upon his shoulder. "Oh, yes, yes, Guy. I can"t bear to feel.... I"m frightened sometimes, and when Mother has been cross with me, I"ve not known what to do. Guy, you won"t ever ask me to come out again at night?"
"Not if it worries you afterward."
"Oh, yes, it has, it has. Guy, when shall we be married?"
"This year. It shall be this year," he vowed. "Let us believe that, Pauline. You do believe that?"
"Oh, Guy, I adore you so wildly. It must be this year. My darling, my darling, this year ... let it be this year."
Guy doled out very carefully the 35 he had acc.u.mulated by the sale of his books. Lampard and Clary had to be content with 7 apiece. Five more creditors received 4, or rather one of them only 3 19s., so that the guinea left over could be put back into the current account for poetic justice. There was for the present nothing more to do but await the verdict of Worrall"s reader, and in a fortnight Guy heard from the publisher to say this had been favourable enough to make Mr. Worrall wish to see him in order to discuss the matter of publication. Guy was much excited and rushed across to the Rectory in a festivity of hopefulness. He had wired to say he would be in London next day, and all that evening the name of Worrall was lauded until round his unknown personality shone the aureole of a wise and benevolent saint. There seemed no limit to what so discerning a publisher might not do for Guy, and he and Pauline became to themselves and to her family the hero and heroine of such an adventure as never had been. In the course of the evening Guy had an opportunity of talking to Margaret, and for the first time for a long while he availed himself of it.
"Are you really going to talk to me then?" she asked in mock surprize.
"Margaret, I"ve been rather objectionable lately," said Guy, remembering with an access of penitence that it must be almost exactly a year ago that he and Margaret in that snowy weather had first talked about his love for Pauline.
"Well, I have thought that you were forgetting me," said Margaret. "I shall be sad if we are never going to be friends again."
"Oh, Margaret, we are friends now. I"ve been worried, and I thought that you had been rather unkind to Pauline."
"I haven"t really."
"Of course not. It was absolutely my fault," Guy admitted. "Now that there seems a chance of our being married in less than ten years, I"m going to give up this continual exasperation in which I live nowadays.
It"s curious that my first impression of you all should have been as of a Mozart symphony, so tranquil and gay and self-contained and perfectly made did the Rectory seem. How clumsily I have plunged into that life,"
he sighed. "Really, Margaret, I feel sometimes like a wild beast that"s escaped from a menagerie and got into a concert of chamber-music. Look here, you shall never have to grumble at me again. Now tell me, just to show that you"ve forgiven my detestable irruption ... when Richard comes back...."
Margaret gave him her hand for a moment, and looked down.
"And you"re happy?" he asked eagerly.
"I"m sure I shall be."
"Oh, you will be, you will be."
Pauline asked him afterward what he had said to Margaret that could have made her so particularly sweet, and when Guy whispered his discovery, Pauline declared that the one thing necessary to make this evening perfect had been just that knowledge.
"Guy, how clever of you to make her tell you what she will never tell us. You don"t know how much it has worried me to feel that you were always angry with Margaret. How I"ve exaggerated everything! And what friends you really are, you dears!"